Lowe's offers to spruce up '10 bleakest cities'

Lowe’s has come up with a way to put spring in the step of residents who live in the U.S. cities hardest hit by winter: a makeover.

Lowe's has announced that the company will be deploying Lowe’s Heroes employee volunteers to visit the "10 Bleakest Cities of 2015" to complete makeover projects that have been neglected or delayed because of extreme winter conditions. Volunteers will complete projects such as painting, landscaping, creating outdoor rooms and adding curb appeal throughout the spring season.

"The data doesn't lie – this has been one of the harshest winters in recent history and people are more than ready to shed the snow shovels and welcome spring," said Steve Hilberg, senior climatologist/meteorologist for the Midwestern Regional Climate Center at the University of Illinois.

This month Lowe's Heroes employee volunteers kicked off the spring season by removing snow and brightening spirits at Boston's Leahy-Holloran Community Center, where Lowe's and Rebuilding Together installed a playground last year. The team will be back in Boston to complete a spring makeover project once the ground has thawed. The following cities (listed in alphabetical order) round out the 10 U.S. cities with the harshest winters: Buffalo; Detroit; Hartford; Louisville; Nashville; Newark; New York City; Portland, Maine; and Providence.

Lowe’s says research shows that most adults find projects during winter that they need to complete in their homes. In fact, 87% of those consumers say there are things inside of their homes that need to be fixed that bother them every time they look at them. Lowe’s says it will be offering inspiration and guidance at lowes.com for consumers to get started on their to-do lists now.

Also this week Lowe’s announced a new partnership with KeyMe that will place the company’s retail kiosks at select Lowe’s locations. Lowe’s says the kiosks make frustrating and expensive lockouts a thing of the past by enabling customers to safely store a “digital copy” of their keys in the cloud and easily create a spare copy at their local Lowe’s in under 30 seconds. These kiosks are also integrated with the popular and free KeyMe mobile app, creating a seamless multi-platform experience – keys can be saved via the app, then accessed and printed at a kiosk in the event of a lockout.

Lowe's has 1,840 home improvement and hardware stores and more than 265,000 employees.